Hellhound (10 page)

On the other hand, Demetrius was smart. He wouldn’t
try this before a ceremony when heavy traffic hit SL5 and the throne room.
Mid-day wasn’t the best time, either, when his powers were at their weakest.

If I stayed in my apartment, I would end up dwelling
on the matter until I cried. I had to get moving, so I went to Damares’s
apartment down the hall after I gathered my senses. She opened the door after
the second knock. Her eyes were streaked crimson. She’d been crying.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

She nodded and moved back into her apartment. I closed
the door and joined her on the couch after she made tea and brought out a
platter of cookies.

“How are you holding up?” I inquired with a shaky sip.

“I’m miserable, but I can’t complain more than others
right now. Sugar is my friend at the moment. How are you handling this?”

I became rigid in order to hold back emotion, to keep
from bawling. “Sorta numb with misery, but pissed and anxious at the same time.
Do you know anything about what happened?”

Damares looked away and didn’t answer.

“You should tell me.”

She swallowed. “Demetrius has been warning me about
the Council for a long time now.”

I nodded.

“All he talked about was the Elders getting stronger
off labeled criminals, and the cerebral chamber distorting memories. I thought
he was going to start a rebellion.”

“Don’t worry. He knows better than that,” I assured
her. “He doesn’t like many things here, but leaving the domicile and grumbling
over it is way different than spearheading a revolt.”

“I know. Since he tracks down rebels all the time, he
knows where that road leads. But, I still worried. He became more adamant about
the topic during his last stay. He told me he wanted to leave as soon as
possible, but the sentries told him to stay when he walked to the foyer.”

Even that surprised me. “When did he say that?”

“Yesterday.” She paused. “You guys got in late, but he
saw me.”

“What else?” I tried to ask the question with a hint
of patience, kindness, but that’s not what I was feeling. I wanted the truth,
needed it, and so did Demetrius. Every minute spent trying to pry it out of
Damares was a minute wasted when she could just tell me what she knew and I
could get closer to the culprit.

“Lydia, you know, one of the engineers, said she was
going to confess what she saw happen.”

“And what would that be?”

“After our meeting, when they took you below ground,
she told me she hated to hurt me, but she had to tell the truth. She was on sub
level five working on something at Danther’s request. Afterward, she heard
commotion from the hall on her way back to the elevator. So, she looked inside
the throne room. She saw my brother kill them.”

My eyes widened with horror. I took Damares by the
shoulders and shook. “And you believe her?”

She gasped, shocked. Tears slithered down her cheeks.
“Lydia’s a good friend. She’s never lied to me, has no reason to. Until
Demetrius started talking against the Council, I would’ve shut her up, but he’s
lived away for so long. How well do I really know him if he hates the Council,
despises living with the clan, and blatantly pursued you, of all people!”

“Still, that’s a vicious accusation.”

“Her memories will be enough to convict him.”

I went over my last interaction with Demetrius before
he fled. Did he have a spray of blood on him? I couldn’t remember, and I hated
it.

Damares continued in sobs, “She ran off and hid in her
apartment. When she heard the Council summon us to the meeting room, Lydia was
too nervous to speak up in front of everyone. She just wanted to speak with the
Elders in private. But, she told me first so I wouldn’t feel betrayed or
suddenly surprised.

“Half of me wanted to stop her from accusing my brother,
but the other half knows the truth has to be told. I understand she had to
confess. Like her, I follow our people, not my blood.”

Rocking myself, I fought back tears and mumbled, “He
did this?”

The thought stung all over, like a nest of hornets attacking
a threat. I knew Demetrius well, but I hardly knew Lydia. I couldn’t see what
she gained by accusing him. Perhaps she only
thought
she saw him.
Perhaps this accusation against him was a mistake. I would see her memories. I
had to.

My phone chimed, tearing my thoughts away from hope.
“Hello?”

“Are you still in the domicile?” Danther asked.

“Yes, why?”

“Please come down to the throne room right away.”

“Why?”

“The Council wishes to see you.”

I hung up without a response.

“Sorry. I want to talk more. I know it’s hard, but at
least we have one another to talk to, and I hear that helps. We can talk more
later, but I have to go. I don’t know what to say, really, except be strong. We
don’t know anything know for sure. I don’t know Lydia well enough to believe
her, so she better have some hard evidence.”

I closed the door behind me and caught the beginning
of Damares’s cries. I breathed and kept my own sobs from breaking through.

Chapter Eight

After leaving Damares’s apartment and taking the
elevator down to SL5, a sub sentry appeared as soon as the door opened. He
nodded at me once, grunted, and escorted me to the throne room. He pushed open
the right double door, and then pulled it shut behind me once I took a few
paces inside. The Council convened yet again. Every seat except one was filled
on the majestic thrones on the high row around the far wall. Mother and
Claudius were present, as expected. I didn’t like how he took my father’s
throne, or that he sat next to my mother as if they were united.

I stood in the middle of the stage floor, in the
granite circle littered with ancient inscriptions. I tried not to shift.
Standing in the spot where my father was slain unnerved me, though the area had
been thoroughly cleaned.

“A member came to us a short while ago to bear witness
to what she saw transpire here earlier in the day,” Serph, a palatable Elder
and the head of judicial cases, spoke.

“Lydia,” I said.

They couldn’t be too surprised that I knew. After all,
I was very good at what I did, and I was extremely fast.

I wondered if the Council only gathered the likely
suspects into a meeting to probe and question to appear less controlling, less conspiring,
since we knew rumors of rebellion sprouted up across all the clans. If they
forced everyone into the cerebral chamber one at a time, that single action
alone would spark more rebels.

Thanks to Lydia stepping up, only one member
relinquished her memories.

Serph nodded. “I’m afraid that we’ve made a unanimous
decision.”

My heart skipped a beat. My lungs trapped my breath. I
slowly blinked and then swallowed down untamed fears.

“With great regret, and amid great tragedy, we have
decided to renounce Demetrius, the tracker.”

I withheld a gasp.

“Demetrius has been found guilty of murdering Elder
Augustus, husband to Elder Delphine, and the undertaker Nathanial, son of Elder
Claudius. He will be renounced from the clan when we dismiss you today.”

Forcing calmness into my flat tone, I asked, “Other
than Lydia’s words, do you have any evidence?”

We didn’t believe in installing security cameras and
hidden microphones for fear of retaliation. Sometimes if people were coiled too
tightly, even if for the greater good, they sprang into rebellion under a
forced hand. We weren’t very different from mortals in this regard. Crimes
seldom occurred here, but at this moment, I wished we used this type of mortal
technology. I couldn’t truly believe my lover killed my father.

Being renounced from the clan was extreme. A person
had to commit grave sin or error to be renounced by all of us. The greatest
crimes led directly to death, but minor ones led to this. Since Demetrius was
on the run, he was renounced until caught, and then he would be killed.

My soul churned in upheaval. A small rebellion surged
within me, and I considered being Demetrius’s ally. Together we could run,
fugitives for the remainder of our lives, always looking over our shoulders,
never planting a home in one place. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to
be an Elder, especially now. I didn’t want to lose my lover.

I blinked again. Except that my bloodlines made this
impossible. I had to be rational.

Demetrius would be killed. I knew what was coming.

Serph replied, “The type of dagger found at the crime
scene specifically belongs to the trackers of this clan. The daggers of every
tracker who were present in the domicile in the near past and present have been
accounted for.

“Since Demetrius fled, which largely counted against
him, we could neither confirm an alibi nor account for his daggers. Each
dagger, as you may or may not know, is etched with the first three letters of
the holder’s name. After the dagger was cleaned, we could clearly see the
engraving.”

He nodded to his minion, a tall and lean man named
Heider.

The minion kept his gaze secure on me and walked with
both hands holding a red, square piece of cloth loosely folded just enough to
cover the dagger. He held it up to me. After a moment, I lifted my hand, and
with hesitance, tossed aside the corners. With a sharp inhalation, I picked it
up and examined the broad, short, bronze handle. The engraving was clear and
clean. It wasn’t altered.

DEM.

Crap
.

“May I keep this?”

Claudius looked at me quizzically. Before he opened
his mouth to protest or question me, since I wasn’t sure which he preferred,
Serph commented, “As a piece of remembrance, maybe?”

Trick question.

“No. Would there be a reason for it to remain in your
care?”

“I don’t see why not. We have all seen this piece of
evidence, and it is of no further use. You may take it, granted that you bring
it back to the blacksmiths once Demetrius has been tried.”

The blacksmiths would destroy the tracker’s daggers
after his death.

“Is there any other evidence, aside from a woman’s
testimony and a dagger that could have been made or stolen?” I asked.

“Yes, Lydia’s memories are a part of the cerebral
chamber, irrefutable evidence.”

I winced. Lydia could’ve been drunk, high, or lost in
some horrid fantasy. If she remembered seeing Demetrius, then she believed he
killed Father.

However, the cerebral chamber replicated memories, not
the perception. Seeing Lydia’s memories would place my reservation to rest. I,
just like everyone else, would know for sure. And my shaky love for Demetrius
would die.

“Did you see his dagger at the crime scene?” Balai
asked.

I didn’t remember. I saw
a
dagger. Had I seen
initials? Now I realized that I had smelled smoke, so I knew a tracker had been
there.

A chill swept through my body. “Demetrius told me he
lost his dagger. We’d been looking for it. Someone must’ve stolen it and planted
it as evidence.”

Claudius scoffed. “Convenient.”

I scowled, but I couldn’t object. It could’ve been a
ruse, but why would he…?

“Will you protest the witness’s memory once you see
it?” Balai asked.

“I have to hunt down my former lover.”

“We expect you will hunt down your father’s killer,
Selene. And we can expect you will take your assignment and bring Demetrius
back so we can execute his punishment, which will be death, for the atrocious
crimes he has clearly committed. We can also expect that you will take any
assignment given to you and accomplish it without further worry on our part.
You wanted to be a hunter so badly, so go hunt,” he snarled.

“You must wholly commit to bringing him in,” Balai
said. “Are you ready?”

I inhaled and averted my eyes. Exhale, inhale, I
calmed down enough to keep my voice from trembling. “Have Danther pull up the
memory from the database.”

I searched the room for him. He stood to the far
right, past the thrones.

“Danther?” I looked at the Council minion. He
straightened and looked at his patron, Claudius, then at Serph.

In order to pull up a memory, at least six Elders had
to be present. They cleared their thoughts and pried into the all mighty
cerebral chamber using the power of the elements. I wasn’t quite sure how this
worked.

In one accord, the Elders fished out the memory and
channeled the images to Danther, whose broad brain waves reverberated the
memories. He was unique this way, and perhaps the most powerful minion I knew.
He was indispensable. He relayed the most recent memories entered into the
cerebral chamber through his eyes, but he couldn’t see them himself.

Stepping close to me, Danther placed his fingers on my
temples and stared into my eyes. I didn’t like his cold touch, but I didn’t
move.